Governing Nature Conservation in Political “Hotbeds”: A Contractual Approach

The implementation of nature conservation initiatives is one of the major factors in successfully securing sustainability. According to social science literature, bottom-up approaches that build on community engagement are preferred over top-down approaches because the establishment of nature conservation relies on mutual agreement and non-opportunistic behavior of the parties concerned. This preference is particularly notable in political “hotbeds” with weak governmental enforcement. The success of bottom-up approaches depend heavily on how the governance arrangements concerning nature conservation initiatives incentivize the commitment and trust of the stakeholders involved. This study explores what types of governance frameworks are appropriate to establish commitment and trust in bottom-up nature conservation. This paper also investigates whether private law theories on contractual governance, namely contractual networks, can establish the basis for a governance framework in private relationships. Contractual networks are hybrid forms of organizations located between markets and hierarchies. “They are created to coordinate activities by legally independent parties who cooperate to achieve a common objective without creating a new corporate entity.” We will demonstrate that the theory related to the governance of contractual networks has the potential to form such an effective framework